PFI-RP: Efficiency and Driving Range Improvements of Electric Vehicles through a Novel Battery-Inverter Architecture

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation – Research Partnership (PFI-RP) project is to enable the automotive industry to make battery-powered electric vehicles (BEVs) more affordable and with a longer driving range. This project will support the transition from fossil fuels to clean electric energy. Reduced costs and improved performance in terms of higher efficiency and longer driving range will accelerate the adoption of the BEV technology. The project will also create a unique partnership with an automotive industry leader that will train the next generation technical and entrepreneurship leaders to lead the US automotive industry. The outreach efforts through student competitions and the Engineer Your World high school engineering program will broaden the participation of a diverse student population. The proposed project is based on a disruptive battery-inverter architecture. Today’s battery in a BEV is a high voltage system based on series connection of many low voltage battery cells. In such architecture, all cells must perform together as a whole and any non-performing cell degrades the whole system’s performance and increases the cost due to the need for complicated management and mitigation components. The proposed project addresses this issue by allowing battery cells to operate almost independently based on their state of the health and state of charge. This architecture can substantially extend the overall battery life, effectively reducing the system cost. The novel inverter can also achieve much higher power conversion and motor efficiency, further extending the drive range of the BEVs. The project will develop a prototype system that will be tested to verify the thermal and electrical performance of the battery-inverter system and its suitability to be implemented in future BEV platforms. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.